


baby I'm howlin for you

by myconstant



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Footy Secret Santa, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2844638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myconstant/pseuds/myconstant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone gets a little jealous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby I'm howlin for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babysnowred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babysnowred/gifts).



> written for babysnowred on tumblr for the 2014 footy secret santa exchange. happy holidays!! :)
> 
> (huge thanks as well to caravanslost for the top-notch beta and to o. for the much-needed cheerleading)

 

Jealousy is not a particularly good look on anyone, but Sergio Ramos is honestly beyond caring.

He woke up in his Paris hotel room excited for training. He sang extra loud in his morning shower and walked out onto the grounds whistling. However, all of those good feelings are now dead and departed because there is an absolute _scene_ happening in front of him.

It’s not that training for an international friendly is an especially outrageous experience.

No, the problem is Fernando.

Fernando Torres with his back pressed into the damp grass and head thrown back in gratification, actually mewing as Juan Mata helps stretch his hamstring. Sergio, standing a few meters away and staring, curls his hands into fists.

When Juan slightly adjusts the angle, Fernando sighs dreamily into the stretch and Sergio, acutely aware of the cold sweat coating his palms and the growing heat constrained beneath his kit, emits a noise that could only be mistaken for a growl. It is a low and throaty sound that he himself can barely hear, but somehow Fernando does, turning his head and cracking a curious eye open. He definitely sees Sergio’s narrowed stare and slack jaw because Fernando just smiles, slowly closes his eyes, and guides Juan to stretch him out even farther. 

Sergio slams a stray ball into the back of the net.

 

 

After training, Fernando sneaks up behind him in the locker room and drapes a loose arm around his shoulder.

“Why the bad mood?” 

“Are you and Juan a thing now?” Sergio asks, too sharp and too loud. Across the room, Silva nudges Villa.

“Maybe,” Fernando replies casually before dropping to a dramatic whisper: “Should I go for it?”

It is clearly a joke, but Sergio cannot hold back a panicked “ _No!_ ”

“And why not?”

“Because.” He stops himself just before he can add _maybe there’s better for you out there_.

“Well,” Fernando shrugs, turning for the showers. “I guess that settles that then."

Sergio can hear his smile.

 

 

The last time he saw Fernando, it was in Madrid two weeks after South Africa. They were sprawled out on the couch in Sergio’s apartment, knocking back beer and adding their own questionable commentary to _The Godfather_. Five minutes in, Fernando looked away from the screen, met Sergio’s eyes, and said, “I really like this.”

Sergio grinned, thankful and relieved that they had decided to stay in. The usual tension was missing from Fernando’s face, the constant burden on his shoulders gone as he snuggled down against his quilt. “Yeah, it’s a classic.”

Fernando rolled his eyes and popped a hand out from beneath the blanket to poke at Sergio’s arm.

“This,” he said. “ _You_ ,” and Sergio shifted a little closer.

When the credits began to roll, they stumbled into Sergio's bedroom to pass out in their clothes, ending up with limbs everywhere, Fernando’s mouth adorably ajar, and the light duvet tangled at their waists. A little past two in the morning, Sergio woke up to an unmistakable buzzing noise. He rolled over onto his back, glared first at the ceiling, and then turned to look much more gently at the boyish outline still snoring softly next to him. 

This was Fernando, this was his best friend, and he, Sergio, was a fool with a long and well-documented history of ignoring the signs until too late, of going in for the tackle too hard, of falling in love too fast. He loved football with all of the passion in his soul, but he also loved the hot, sultry weeks between seasons where he could see Fernando and they could watch movies until late and climb into bed and fall asleep together on a Tuesday night, just like they used to years ago. This was Fernando and Sergio just didn’t want to share. 

When Fernando’s phone went off a third time, Sergio picked up without bothering with the caller ID. 

“Go away,” he mumbled into the speaker, slinging an arm around his best friend’s waist. “He’s _mine_.” 

Beneath the covers, Fernando’s hand found his.

 

 

It might be a friendly, but it feels like a qualifier.

The first seventy-five minutes are nothing but grueling push-pull and bitter bad luck. They try again and again, but they are playing France in France and as his frustration builds, Sergio's tackles lose their precision and there's a card for it. He hates nil-all draws. 

In the eighty-fifth minute, the tide changes swiftly as the right passes start to get made and then the ball is at his feet and he breaks up the middle and passes to Xavi right before a defender’s boot connects with his ankle.

They might be the away team, but the stadium still erupts ten seconds later when Fernando scores, the ball arcing into the net. A beautiful goal is a beautiful goal.

The angry impatience that had began to pool in his chest over the last half abruptly gives way and Sergio is yelling along with the rest of them, the sharp throb in his ankle out of mind. Fernando is shouting too, eyes alight as he reels away from the goalposts. He crashes into Sergio, knocking them both off the ground and for one precious moment, Sergio rolls him over and presses his lips against his cheek, his jaw, his hair. Fernando leans into it and everything feels so perfect to Sergio, like this is how it’s always supposed to be – magnificent goals and beautiful, golden Fernando beneath him.

But then he sees Fernando playfully yelp when Piqué tickles him after the final whistle. Something inside Sergio contracts and that familiar need to kick something hard comes out.

“God help you,” Villa says, patting him on the back on the way off the pitch.

Even when he’s back in Madrid, the tight knot in his stomach stays.

 

 

Sergio doesn’t know it, but there is a little on-going joke in the Anfield dressing room. It goes something like this:

“Torres, where’s your better half?” Steven, over the mayhem of the post-game high.

“Yeah, how’s the missus?” Martin.

“Out of town?” Daniel, all innocence.

Fernando is changing out of his kit and fights the beginning of a smile. He _knows_ what’s coming, because this is not the first or second or tenth time he’s heard this. He likes to think he has the locker room capital to put an end to it, but - 

“ _Out of town?_ No!” grins Pepe. “He’s playing at the Bernabéu tonight.”

Fernando blushes and pulls a face, but even so, he doesn’t try to make it stop. 

 

 

The next time they see each other, it’s three months later in December. Sergio is in London with his club for a friendly and after the game, Cesc invites _the lads_ over for a drink. Sergio happily complies, making fun of Cesc’s English slang, drinking up Cesc’s good Spanish wine and regaling Cesc’s girlfriend’s friends with stories from Johannesburg and Cape Town. In the middle of one particularly entertaining tale involving one Carles Puyol, a rolling pin, and a giant likely poisonous spider, Fernando walks in with Xabi and Sergio’s throat goes a little dry.

One hour and several drinks later, Cesc’s flat is packed with bodies and Sergio’s arm has circled its way around Fernando’s waist. Fernando is warm and flushed, half-sitting in his lap under the flimsy pretense of “consolidating space.” Sergio genuinely sighs a few minutes later when Fernando jumps up to find a glass of water and Iker cocks a brow, leaning over to ask, “What’s all that about, then?”

Sergio laughs and says something easy about best friends, about distance, but Iker scoffs.

It’s not a lie, Sergio wants to tell him. Yes, sometimes he wonders if Fernando is even real, if someone can even be so like that. Yes, sometimes he is filled with maddening jealous thoughts that make him wish that they were more, that he had some claim. Yes, sometimes (many times) he thinks that he’s half in love with Fernando and probably has been for three, four, five years. But despite this and all of the teams, calendars, and miles that separate them, this is Fernando, this is his best friend. It is not a lie.

Iker looks like he's about to say something, but their conversation is rudely interrupted by someone commandeering the speakers from Sergio’s iPhone. The guitar is replaced with pulsating pop, the volume is turned all the way up, and then, it happens.

Cesc is the primary instigator, jumping back and forth like a kid with a martini shaker, bobbing his head up and down to the music. A few people turn and laugh or clap, but it is Fernando, quiet and reserved Fernando, who puts his glass of water down with tipsy determination. Sergio watches Fernando with wide eyes, admiring the slow, self-assured, totally uninhibited way he moves and the small half-smile on his face. Fernando isn’t really showing off, just rocking back and forth and rolling his shoulders to the beat, but the movement is hypnotic and sensual to Sergio, who is involuntarily shifting in his seat when Fernando looks up.

His eyes are electric and dark and Sergio is suddenly halfway to his feet.

Then the beat abruptly changes and Cesc - _Cesc_ \- is in front of Fernando and Fernando, face flushed, goes with it, their bodies moving closer together in time. Cesc’s hands first lay on Fernando's shoulders and then run down his torso, drifting over the hint of hard muscle under his white tee and _lower_. He ghosts over the leather of Fernando’s belt and Sergio is frozen, half-standing, half-sitting. Never mind the fact that Cesc’s girlfriend is in the next room because Fernando lets out at giggle at the contact and like that, the floodgates open. Half of London is dancing and everyone – _everyone_ – has their hands on Fernando.

Sergio watches this with narrowed eyes, but Iker watches Sergio.

“Right. Best friends.” Iker mutters and if Sergio were paying any attention, he’d detect a hint of amusement beneath the sarcasm.

No, Sergio just sees red.

 

 

By the time he knocks on Fernando’s hotel room door, it is nearly three in the morning and his moody possessive rage has dissolved into a moody vulnerable sulk. A sleepy Fernando answers the door in nothing but old Atleti pajama pants, the expression on his face thankfully more amused than annoyed. Sergio opens his mouth to apologize for waking him up, but ends up just staring for a bit because Fernando in this state of undress looks way too good, too tousled, too - 

“You didn’t have to lock Cesc in a closet,” Fernando says easily, and then Sergio remembers why he’s here.

“You were dancing with everyone,” he scowls, striding past Fernando into the room. It’s dark inside, except for the small light from a reading lamp that coats everything in a hazy dim glow. Behind him, Fernando blinks and closes the door.

“I like to dance,” he offers by way of explanation, walking towards Sergio. “You know-“ he sways his hips as his fingers graze the waistline of Sergio’s jeans, “-like this.”

Sergio nearly starts at the friction. “ _Nando._ You dance _like this_ with everyone.” His voice falls pathetically. “Except _me_.”

Fernando appears to contemplate this for a few seconds before taking a seat on the edge of his slept-in bed. He reaches out and tugs on Sergio’s hand, guiding him until he’s standing in the space between his legs. Fernando’s hands run lightly up and down the back of his thighs and this time, Sergio can’t hide the shake that travels up his spine.

“Fine,” Fernando tells him, as if he's reasoning with a child. “Do you want me to dance with you?”

“Yes,” Sergio nods enthusiastically, because it’s very, very true and he wants it very, very much. It’s three a.m. post-match and he should be exhausted, but his heart is pounding, his head is spinning, and Fernando’s face is level with the zipper to his jeans. He drags out a breath. “But not now.”

Fernando leans back a little. “Then what do you want? Right now?”

Sergio looks up at the ceiling because this is the question, the one that is silently there every time he lies awake in Madrid and aches for Fernando in Liverpool. It is a question that he doesn’t really know the exact answer to, but when he looks deep into Fernando’s eyes and sees trust and warmth and a spark of something else, he tries anyway. 

“This," he says, reaching for Fernando's hand. " _You_.”

For one blinding split-second Sergio thinks that he’s said the wrong thing, that maybe he’s misunderstood the last five years, because there’s no immediate response, but then Fernando’s hand is gently tugging on his again and he allows himself to be steadily guided forward onto the bed until he’s on all fours, Fernando on his back beneath him. Fernando lifts his hands to Sergio’s face, ghosting over the bridge of his nose, the line of his cheek. The next ten seconds pass intimately, quietly, the both of them just carefully watching, Sergio’s heart beating in double time, because this is Fernando, this is his best friend, and then – here’s something for the record books – Fernando breaks first.

He grasps Sergio’s shirt and pulls him down hard, his lips warm, soft and pliant against Sergio’s mouth. It is everything and nothing like Sergio imagined: gentle and insistent; innocent and dirty, but above all, it is perfect. For a moment Sergio just lets himself be kissed by Fernando, because even though this is actually happening, even though this is completely real, his reflexes are apparently delayed. But then Fernando rolls his hips a certain way and Sergio feels him already half-hard against his thigh and that is all it takes. He finally reacts and kisses him back fully and openly, working Fernando’s mouth with his tongue and running his hands through his hair, a puzzle that fits perfectly into place.

“Mine,” Sergio growls.

“Yours,” Fernando replies. “Yours, yours, always yours.” 

To Sergio, it sounds like a promise.


End file.
